The Justin Bailey password is notable for starting Samus out without her Power Suit. Instead, she wears her outfit from the second-best ending (leotard and boots). She retains the Arm Cannon. Although the colors of Samus' hair, leotard, and skin are all dependent on which suits she has acquired (the default hair color is brown), the term Justin Bailey typically refers to the green-haired palette associated with the Varia Suit. The suit is normally acquired by restarting the game after one of the two best endings, but most players of non-Japanese versions use the mentioned password instead.

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The name "Justin Bailey" comes from the password (JUSTIN BAILEY ------ ------) which allows players to immediately play Samus without her suit on, but still grants her the same abilities and damage reduction as if she were wearing her suit.

There are many false theories regarding the password. For example, Justin Bailey was originally thought to be one of the creators of the game, but no such name appears in the game credits. It was also often said that the Justin Bailey code was a reference to an English or Australian term for a bathing suit. Bathing suits were, according to this rumor, referred to as "bailies," so "Justin Bailey" would more accurately be rendered as "Just In [a] Bailey", which is what Samus appears to wear when the code is used. However, Samus' outfit with this code is a leotard, not a bathing suit, and "bailey" is not actually slang for "bathing suit" anywhere in the world.

It was also rumored that the password violated Metroid's normal checksum verification, which would suggest that JUSTIN BAILEY was deliberately coded into the game. The Metroid Database has attempted to debunk this myth using password generators:[citation needed]

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...the JUSTIN BAILEY password is a total fluke. If you play around with Metroid's password system (something you can do with the Metroid Password Generator program, found in Fan Apps), you can come up with other names and words that work as passwords. The "Justin Bailey" code is one which was found early on and happened to work pretty well, so it became widely reported.

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Using the Justin Bailey code is not the only way to play as suitless Samus. The suit is normally unlocked by replaying the game after any of the endings obtained by beating it in under 3 hours and the game's password system contains a flag which determines whether the player will be using a suited Samus or not. For example, the code "000000 000020 000000 000020" allows the player to start at the beginning of Metroid as suitless Samus without any progress.

Due to the removal of passwords in later games, suitless Samus is no longer a bonus feature, though she did continue to appear suitless in the best endings of subsequent games, and in the Game Overs for most non-Prime series games following Super Metroid in which her suit cracked and exploded, revealing Samus wearing a revealing outfit.

The best ending of Metroid: Samus Returns, when completed on Hard Mode in under 4 hours, features Samus in the Justin Bailey suit, with her green hair and light pink skin (although her hair is in a ponytail). As Samus lands after jumping off-screen, she waves at the camera in the same way she did at the end of Metroid. Although not present in the middle ending of Hard Mode, Samus's unhelmeted self in this ending has her hair colored green in direct reference to the Justin Bailey suit.

In the independent video game parody film Press Start, when Sam (based on Samus) is captured, her spacesuit is removed by a henchman (played by director Ed Glaser) who is wearing a "Justin" nametag and addressed as "Mr. Bailey".

The multi-platform game Catherine features a man at the Stray Sheep bar named Justin Bailey.

Jody Summer's outfit in the F-Zero series resembles the original Justin Bailey suit.

The Metroidvania game Shadow Complex includes an achievement called "Jason Bailey" for completing the game with a 100% rating in under 2 hours. Its icon is a pair of white briefs.

In Axiom Verge, an indie game heavily inspired by the Metroid series, inputting the password "JUSTIN-BAILEY" during gameplay using an item called the "Passcode Tool" will cause the protagonist Trace to wear a swimsuit similar to Samus Aran's. This does not have any other effects on gameplay.

The Metroid e-Manga colorizes Samus's training outfit to be light pink, as well as with a brown-like shade of blond hair. This could quite possibly be a reference to the outfit in Metroid. The same outfit appears in the Child Mode endings of Metroid Fusion, where it is instead depicted as white.

In Metroid, the value in memory address 69B3 toggles the suit mode. A value of 1 makes Samus appear in bikini.[1]

A variant of the password: (JUSTIN BAILEY ------ 000000) starts the player in Kraid's Lair with 55 missiles, 4 out of 6 Energy Tanks, and all power-ups (including the Ice Beam using the Wave Beam's particle, but not the wave pattern). Ridley and Kraid have not been defeated.